Developing countries call for scaled-up response to food crisis

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/198624,developing-countries-call-for-scaled-up-response-to-food-crisis.html

Developing countries call for scaled-up response to food crisis

Posted : Sun, 13 Apr 2008 19:48:08 GMT
Author : DPA

Washington - Ministers from developing countries called Sunday for the international community to beef up its response to soaring food prices that are threatening to destroy a decade of progress in reducing poverty. In a series of statements ahead of the World Bank's traditional spring meeting, ministers called for a concerted response to what the bank has said is an 83-per-cent surge in food prices over the last three years.

Indian Finance Minister P Chidambaram put the blame squarely on the use of bio-fuels that use food crops as an alternative energy source and called on industrial nations to cut off all subsidies for such bio-fuel production.

"In a world where there is hunger and poverty, there is no policy justification for diverting food crops towards bio-fuels," Chidambaram said.

World Bank President Robert Zoellick warned last week that the food crisis could set back poverty reduction in the world's poorest nations by seven years, and called for developed countries to meet a 500-million-dollar aid shortfall at the World Food Programme.

...